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By Jessica Goodell, John Hearn
$23
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The story goes like this: One day Jesus will come and take his favorite Christians to heaven, leaving the rest to fend off the Antichrist. It’s called the rapture, and 20 percent of Christians in America believe it is imminent. That’s far too many for a group of moderate Christians and theologians who want to reclaim Sunday school.
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Rep. Pete Stark of Fremont, Calif., just became the first Congress member and the highest-ranking elected official to publicly acknowledge he does not believe in God. To give you some sense of how difficult a time nonreligious politicians typically have in the U.S., a recent Gallup poll showed that while 92 percent of Americans would support a Jewish presidential candidate, only 45 percent would vote for an atheist.
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soulforce.org
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By Chris Hedges — Gays are the first target of the Christian right’s campaign against human rights, but they won’t be the last.
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A series of attacks targeting Shiite pilgrims killed more than 100 people in Iraq on Tuesday. Some victims said they blamed the Sunnis, but also the lack of security provided by Iraqi police and U.S. forces. Though reports vary, Reuters has reported the death toll at 149.
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In this June 2006 speech before a Chicago congregation, Sen. Barack Obama opens up about his past struggles with religion, his eventual commitment to Christianity, and his belief that spirituality and politics can enrich and complement each other.
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AP Photo / Charles Dharapak
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By Chris Hedges — Many have dismissed Ralph Nader’s recurring candidacy as an “ego trip,” but veteran journalist Chris Hedges argues that the activist and agitator has in fact taken a consistent and necessary stand against the consumer fraud of American politics.
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The Rev. Jerry Falwell held a hush-hush summit earlier this month with other conservative Republicans from the Council for National Policy to discuss the 2008 presidential race. The exclusive group is facing a status downgrade when the Bush years end and can’t find anyone in the lineup of candidates who clearly fits the council’s bill.
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Here at Truthdig, we can’t get enough of Chris Hedges and his takedown of the radical Christian right. (See our interview with him.) So here’s the “American Fascists” author (No. 29 at Amazon.com) holding his own against Stephen Colbert’s absurdist onslaught. Jump for videos.
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from jwharrison.com
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Pat Robertson’s “age-defying” weight loss shake may be more trouble than it’s worth. Phillip Busch, who is suing Robertson for exploiting his image to sell the product on his “700 Club” talk show, says the televangelist walked into court and told him, “I am going to kill you and your family.”
(h/t: Largest Minority)
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This week our selection of Truthdig-flavored videos includes a shocking short documentary on the evangelical war on evolution; a bird’s-eye view of perhaps the first ever avatar-attended virtual peace rally; and a troubling home movie of a U.S. Humvee engaging in bumper-car action in Baghdad.
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This short documentary is perhaps as scary as it gets: Creationists indoctrinate children into believing that humans and dinosaurs coexisted a few thousand years ago.
Want to see what this kind of indoctrination leads to? Read Andrew Sullivan describing why it’s impossible for him to ever doubt the existence of God.
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Robert Scheer and James Harris speak with Chris Hedges, the veteran journalist and author of the new book “American Fascists,” about the threat of the radical Christian movement, and about how getting it right on Iraq ended his relationship with The New York Times.
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In this clip from the new HBO documentary “Friends of God,” the Rev. Ted Haggard engages in some loose sex talk with parishioners. (Haggard is, of course, the former president of the National Association of Evangelicals who famously frequented a gay male sex worker.)
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AP / Dave Martin
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By Chris Hedges — The Harvard seminary graduate, veteran foreign correspondent and author of “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War On America”, warns that the Christian Right is the most dangerous mass movement in American history.
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By Nicholas Schmidle — Pakistan’s “madrassas” have been described as “jihad universities” because of their ties to the Taliban and Islamic extremists, but a small-scale indigenous effort to reform the religious schools could be making more progress than the combined forces of the American, British and Pakistani governments.
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Ladies and gentleman, the main event: The nation’s most prominent atheist dukes it out with one of America’s most eloquent defenders of faith. Check out the opening salvos in their “blogalogue” at Beliefnet or AndrewSullivan.com.
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news.bbc.co.uk
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The House has passed legislation in support of stem cell research. The vote was 253 to 174. President Bush’s only use of the veto was to nix a similar bill last year, and this proposed expansion of research is seen as a direct challenge to him.
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Susan Estrich —
What does it say about us that 37 percent of Americans say they wouldn’t vote for Mitt Romney for president solely because of his Mormon religious affiliation?
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Tensions in Iraq were already running high with the execution of Saddam Hussein and the ongoing violence there. Now Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has scolded Sunni clerics for warning that militias were planning to attack Sunni neighborhoods in Baghdad.
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waynebesen.com
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Pat Robertson is at it again, this time claiming God told him that a major terrorist attack in 2007—possibly nuclear—would result in “mass killing.” The preacher on Tuesday demanded partial credit for predicting a possible tsunami last year, citing spring rains that drenched New England, so don’t rush to judge this latest communique.
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wwp.las-vegas-us.com
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If you’ve been thinking about a vacation to the Grand Canyon but worried someone might try to assault you with information, fear not. Park employees are not allowed to reveal the true age of the formation for fear of offending Christians, and the bookstore features a manuscript claiming the canyon was created during Noah’s flood.
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From Salon.com
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By Chris Hedges — The former New York Times Mideast Bureau chief warns that the radical Christian right is coming dangerously close to its goal of co-opting the country’s military and law enforcement.
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timessquarenyc.org
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A majority of Americans believe 2007 will bring a terrorist attack on the U.S., a major natural disaster and an increase in global warming, according to a new AP poll. Less than a third believe the U.S. will withdraw from Iraq, while 25 percent expect the second coming of Jesus.
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theepochtimes.com
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Despite a vow to fight to the death, Islamist leaders and their troops have mysteriously vanished from the streets of Mogadishu, according to residents there. The Ethiopian army, in support of the powerless transitional government, had driven the Somali fighters back to their stronghold and the nation’s traditional capital after a wave of devastating attacks.
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Largest Minority
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While the Bush administration has busied itself thinking up ways to sell a troop escalation in Iraq, North Carolina Republican Rep. Robin Hayes had a better idea, saying stability in the war-ravaged country hinged on “spreading the message of Jesus Christ.”
(h/t: Largest Minority)
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aljazeera.net
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Despite a brief flirtation with peace, the fighting that has ravaged Somalia in recent days appears likely to continue. The Union of Islamic Courts has advanced to the transitional government’s last remaining base of power, Baidoa, where fighting with Ethiopian troops has led to heavy casualties. Update: After finally admitting to its role in the conflict, Ethiopia has bombed two Somalian airports.
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God forbid that the first Muslim congressman, Keith Ellison, should be allowed to put his hand on a Quran when he’s sworn in without the likes of Virginia’s Rep. Virgil Goode (above) summoning his xenophobic nonsense: “... if American citizens don’t wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration, there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Quran.”
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researchmatters.harvard.edu
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A new study of 38,000 Americans has found that 95 percent had premarital sex, challenging the wisdom of the abstinence-only sex education programs favored by the Bush administration. According to the study’s author: “It would be more effective ... to provide young people with the skills and information they need to be safe once they become sexually active—which nearly everyone eventually will.”
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theage.com.au
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AlterNet’s Jonathan Jones probes Hollywood’s post-“Passion” fetish for Christian-oriented films and challenges the assumption that religious movies will rake in the cash by pandering to an attention-starved audience.
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washingtonpost.com
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For years Iraqi women enjoyed access to education and professional careers. After the U.S. invasion, President Bush promised to expand those freedoms, but the prevalence of sectarian violence and religious fundamentalism has stripped Iraq’s women of many of the rights they had been accustomed to.
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nytimes.com
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Tax dollars are going toward an unlawful program of religious indoctrination in prisons, according to Iowa federal Judge Robert W. Pratt, who now finds himself fighting a battle against entrenched forces from evangelical ministries, prison corporations and the Bush administration.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Sen. Barack Obama’s standing ovation at Pastor Rick Warren’s church demonstrates why the Illinois senator is one of the hottest commodities in 2008 presidential politics.
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northlandchurch.net
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This week Truthdig salutes the Rev. Joel Hunter, who recently resigned as president of the Christian Coalition because the group was unwilling to accept his agenda on global warming, poverty and AIDS. While we don’t endorse Hunter’s stand on choice and gay marriage, we admire the consistency of his pro-life position. As the pastor himself says, “unless we are caring as much for the vulnerable outside the womb as inside the womb, we’re not carrying out the full message of Jesus.”
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Australia’s John Safran goes door-to-door in Salt Lake City, trying to convert Mormons to atheism. Hysterical. (There are lots more Safran vs. religion videos in the YouTube “related” column.)
In the scene above, an old man hits Safran with a rake.
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By Ellen Goodman — Though Ted Haggard and others find the “sin” of homosexuality repulsive, Americans are slowly becoming more tolerant of themselves and each other.
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thegully.com
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The U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has voted overwhelmingly to back the Vatican’s stand against gay sex, marriage and adoption. The group also renewed its opposition to contraception, though only 4 percent of Catholic Americans abide by the ban.
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fjkastl.de
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Sir Elton John said in a recent interview that all organized religions should be banned for sowing bigotry toward gays and turning people into “hateful lemmings.”
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The camp depicted in the documentary “Jesus Camp” is set to close due to the backlash generated by scenes depicting, among other things, prayers for President Bush and young children encouraged to speak in tongues.
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wdr.de
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Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s upcoming memoir connects religious zeal to Bush’s decision-making: “What bothered me, and in a certain way made me suspicious despite the relaxed atmosphere, was again and again in our discussions how much this president described himself as ‘God-fearing.’”
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climatecrisis.net
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The Rev. Sally Bingham tells NPR about her efforts to bring science to the faithful, including screening Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” for congregations around the country.
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Stephen Colbert interviews David Kuo, whose new book, “Tempting Faith,” exposes the Bush administration’s cynical exploitation of religion.
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By Ellen Goodman — The equation between “values voters” and conservative evangelical Christians has become so automatic that no one even noticed that the Values Voters Summit was held on Rosh Hashanah, a high holy day on the Jewish calendar.
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Biologist Richard Dawkins, author of “The God Delusion,” debates Stephen Colbert on the irrationality of religion, the misrepresentation of evolution and the idiocy of intelligent design.
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Three of the country’s leading religious intellectuals—Truthdig contributor Sam Harris (left above), author and blogger Andrew Sullivan (right above), and author Jonathan Kirsch—engage in a spirited KCRW radio discussion about whether the world’s major religions are truly compatible.
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From equalityride.com
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Protestants in general, and Baptists in particular, are much heavier on the whole than their American counterparts in other religions, a Purdue sociology professor has found. Prime example: Jerry Falwell (above). One possible reason: Baptists are denied so many vices, food is “one of the few available sources of earthly pleasures,” says the professor.
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Tales of Mary Magdalene and a 21st-century stripper hooked on heroin; Jesus Christ doing time at Guantanamo for aspiring to be a martyr; they’re just a few of the plays taking place at the Scottish festival.
Posted on Aug 9, 2006
READ MORE 
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AP /Gene Lower
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By Stan Goff — The family of slain NFL-player-turned-Army-Ranger Pat Tillman may have been irreligious, but does that mean they’re not entitled to the truth about the fratricide that killed their son? New Truthdig contributor Stan Goff, a retired U.S. Army Special Forces soldier who has written extensively on the topic, probes for the truth.
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Arctic Tundra ‘Will Turn to Forest’
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